


The Bridge

by beekeepercain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cutting, Fallen Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masochism, Mental Health Issues, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-22 21:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beekeepercain/pseuds/beekeepercain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Dean had no idea what they were doing, and it was likely Castiel didn’t either, but they’d been here many times before. The scars from previous encounters were visible as countless white marks upon the angel’s skin. Of course, as he didn’t heal anymore. He could be marked just like the rest of them. He was nothing but one of the rest now, after all.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't really proofread this. I didn't intend on publishing this. I have no idea what I wrote so expect it to be incoherent at best, and please cut me some slack with grammar here. Felt like shit and vomited it on paper, this is the result.
> 
>  **Warning for stupid pet name usage out of the blue.** I know this is the pet peeve of many of you guys and that you really don't want to read fics with pet names used in them, so there's one here and you've been warned about it.
> 
>  **edit:** how fucking tired was I when I wrote this jfc *EDITING GRAMMAR*

 

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

The silvery blade’s edge pierced the light skin so effortlessly that at first, Dean wasn’t sure it had happened. When he dragged it down however, it dug deeper and blood flowed free from the cut; he eased the pressure a little but kept dragging down for a couple inches more.  
Castiel’s breathing was shallow and his body tense, but when the knife was out of his flesh, he relaxed again. His fingertips stroked Dean’s arm when the man laid his hand down, and without thinking, he brought the hand over Castiel’s and their fingers entwined. The tips of the older’s fingers were cold and his palm was wet from sweat, but so was Dean’s. He sat on the older’s hips, the fallen angel was on his stomach, one arm stretched to his side and the other underneath his head. He used it sometimes to adjust the blindfold over his eyes, a simple black cloth tied too tight so that it would leave red streaks over his face and his eyes would ache from the pressure, if they didn’t already.  
He was naked - Dean wasn’t. Dean wore his jeans still, and he held the blade in one hand. With the other, he completed his role. That hand held Castiel’s, and when it didn’t, he gently stroked the male’s body from here and there, bringing comfort to contrast the pain.

He had no idea what they were doing, and it was likely Castiel didn’t either, but they’d been here many times before. The scars from previous encounters were visible as countless white marks upon the angel’s skin. Of course, as he didn’t heal anymore. He could be marked just like the rest of them. He was nothing but one of the rest now, after all.

Dean brought the blade down again and cut another wound next to the previous, following the side of the older’s spine with the weapon. In the middle, the cut was deep, but at the ends it was more shallow, barely more than a scratch. It was from the deepest part the blood came out of, the length of it no more than an inch at a time.  
He cut the third cut before leaning in to kiss the angel on the back of his neck. Castiel shivered and his fingers awkwardly bent tighter around Dean’s. A mere moment after, the younger pulled his hand away and brought it onto Castiel’s neck instead, applying just enough pressure to get the male to pull up his head. Dean guided it to the side and stretched to kiss Castiel on the mouth instead. The slippery, warm blood was caught between their bodies and he shivered at the feel of it.  
More than anything, feeling it there scared him.

"How many more?" he asked breathlessly, almost whimpering.

"Twelve."

He swallowed, choked.  
"Twelve?"  
His voice was barely a hoarse whisper now.

"Twelve."

Twelve cuts for feathers of the marginal covers, beginning from where the scapulars faded.  
Dean couldn’t count how many had come before - the amount was stunning, spanning the male’s shoulderblades from the middle towards the shoulders themselves like some kind of a twisted painting. The first lines were made out of an absurd amount of small cuts, the next few of less cuts but the scars were longer - at that point, Dean had realised what Castiel had aimed for with his request. He’d fought it, and for a reason. Cutting, carving, drawing blood from someone he had no intentions of killing… he’d sworn he’d never go there again. He’d screamed and he’d shouted and he’d stopped talking completely, he’d sulked and he’d refused again and again and again but eventually, just like before, he’d given in. If it was so fucking important to the older, he’d play along. He’d thought it was just a kink, something the older wanted for the kicks of it, but that was far from truth.  
It was as damaging to Castiel as it was to Dean, a circle of insanity coming together in blood and tears, and it wasn’t unheard of for Dean to lock himself up in the bathroom afterwards to throw up until his lips were numb and his throat burned so sore he knew he wouldn’t talk the day after.

What he feared were the flight feathers. The ones that would span the whole back, down to the buttocks, and bend over the man’s sides. That and what would follow after - there were only so many feathers he could recreate. What would happen when there were no more to add, no more skin to draw them over?

His tears wet the angel’s hair, yet he was still hard like he’d never been turned on by anything more than the feel of his own pain alongside with the older’s. He would have given anything for a bullet right there and then, a bullet shot from somewhere at the back of the room so that neither of them would expect it to come before it would have wiped them out.  
A bullet to just turn this all off, heal them both by ending the pain.

"Cas?"

"Yes?"  
The angel’s voice was calm, but it trembled a little, showing just enough of the pain to reassure Dean of its existence.

"I don’t want to do this anymore."

They breathed, the sound of it loud in the silence that pressed against the younger’s ears and made him feel alone and scared, small in the vastness of the universe around him. Even the room was so much larger than he was, so much more solid; unbending, unbreakable by his hands, no matter how many holes he’d be able to push into it. Perhaps the same was true for Castiel, but these fucking wounds were made with an angel blade. Dean was fully aware of what he did to  _Castiel_  with that thing. The vessel alone was bad enough, even after it had become the angel’s own body, but he just couldn’t take the knowledge that he was cutting to the very core with each wound he created with it.

Castiel had said the core didn’t exist anymore, that his grace was gone and with that, his true form, all he was, and therefore it didn’t matter what Dean did to him now. Dean or anyone, for that matter; he considered himself worth nothing, mere discarded, faulty parts separated from their original purpose, waste matter, a bad memory.  
And Dean didn’t know what to do to tell him otherwise. He didn’t even know how to start.

After he’d already given up and raised the blade again, he felt the older struggling against his weight underneath him. He pressed his knee deep into the mattress below and shifted off Castiel so that the older could pick himself up. He did so but didn’t remove the blindfold: he sought out Dean’s body with his hands and came close to him, and their lips met, barely pressing together at all. The kiss they shared was fearful and questioning, lost, the kind that was best hidden in the darkness that surrounded them.

"What would you rather do?"

Dean shivered. He picked each of those words from Castiel’s lips and tasted the indifference in them, the lack of essence that broke him in tears, and he couldn’t control the flow. He pressed his head onto the older’s chest and sobbed, feeling like an idiot, like he was letting the angel down by being as weak as he was, but he simply couldn’t do this, as it was breaking him apart.

"I just want you," he breathed, "I just want you, Cas."

He heard the male swallow and felt him shift: the cold hands reached for his back and for the blade in his hand. He let go of it, allowing Castiel to take it away from him, even if he was always afraid the man would just bury it in his own flesh when Dean couldn’t. He didn’t do that tonight either. Instead, he placed the blade on the bed and pulled Dean up by his hair, kissed him on his lips and breathed in so close to the younger’s skin that Dean could feel the air charging over each and every pore on his cheek. He answered the kiss and tasted the salt of his own tears, finally bringing his fingers onto the cloth and undoing the knot so that it fell down into his hands. He discarded it, didn’t want anything to do with it anymore.

"You can have me," the older mumbled, then repeated the kiss again.

"I can’t get across, it’s like you’re stuck in the Mariana Trench or the fucking moon, no matter what I do I just can’t get  _to_  you, so it doesn’t fucking matter if I sleep with your corpse, Cas.”

"So I’m just not good enough for you?"

Dean didn’t realise he’d slammed Castiel back down on the bed and held him down by his shoulders before the world had stopped swaying and he’d drawn in at least five inhales, letting out six exhales and trembled through his whole body thrice.

"No," he said in the same exact tone of indifference that Castiel had used before, the one that happened when too much pain was held inside to even mask the tone with anything, "You’re good enough for me. You’re everything to me. It’s just that I don’t mean shit to you, you just want your wings back and when I hurt you, you feel like you’re alive again. But it’s not that the blade makes you feel alive, Cas. I don’t  _want_ the blade to make you feel alive. The only thing I want to do to you is to show you how fucking important you are, how fucking much I love you, how much I need you, and how beautiful you are just like this, trapped in that stupid skin of yours without your grace and your power and with your wings torn off. I still want you like this because all of that doesn’t mean you’re not  _you_  - it just means you need me, too.”

They kissed, the act again the slow, shy gesture from before. They tasted one another while waiting for something to push through. Finally, the thing that did was a tear from the angel, a single one sliding soundlessly down his cheek, barely visible in the pale light cast by the stars way too far above them.  
Their eyes met - Dean couldn’t really remember when he’d last held an eye contact to the older - and Castiel swallowed, a bit of light returning ever so slowly into his gaze.  
Then, out of nowhere, the faintest hint of a smile passed his lips, but it was definitely the kind that wasn’t faked and its birth wasn’t on the muscles of his mouth but in that light that was still alive, weak and flickering but definitely alive, in the blue of his eyes.  
He sighed and brought Dean down on his chest so that the younger man’s body was entirely against his from waist up, and his hand travelled gently across Dean’s back equally from his head to the pit of his spine, sending warmth and shivers all over the taller’s shape.

"I still love you," Dean muttered against the angel’s chest, hair bending against the older’s chin, "but you’re hurting me."

"I know."  
Castiel breathed in slowly, deeply, and his hand stopped by the small of Dean’s back, palm down and over his spine.  
"I can’t explain."

"I know."  
Dean swallowed and closed his eyes, hips pressing onto the older’s against his will but he didn’t really care, not afterwards, because being close to Castiel like this made him feel less alone and more in control than anything else did.  
"Cas, you know how we say we’ll cross the bridge when we get there?"

"I do."

"Well, I mean… could this be where the damn bridge is? Can we start crossing it now and not when I pick up the .45?"

He heard the trembling of the older’s breath and the ringing of the silence around them, and he held onto Castiel, barely brave enough to breathe himself.  
Finally, the angel moved, holding him just a little bit tighter, and Dean felt the nod against the top of his head. It sent a liquid warmth running down his body until he was all warm from the middle and ice cold from all extremities, a conflict that made no sense physically but expressed his feelings, both the hope and the fear, better than any words could have done.

"The bridge can start from here," Castiel agreed carefully.

"I’m gonna ditch that fucking blade, Cas, just so you know."

The older nodded again, slowly and hesitantly.  
"I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to be hurt," he said.

Dean nodded.  
"I know."  
He breathed in the man’s scent and watched the room around them idly for a second.  
"Been there myself."  
Not that telling that helped either of them. He wished he could take the words back but instead, tears came out again and wet Castiel’s skin, made his cheek slippery against it.  
"It doesn’t solve anything."

Castiel’s fingers brushed through his hair once, and then his hands stayed both over his shoulders, barely holding.  
"Can I make a request?" the angel asked then.

"Anything, Cas."

He heard the smile and the small huff, almost a chuckle, pass through the other’s nostrils.  
"If you’re still in the mood, I suppose we could try what you want to do now. I promise to pay attention."

Dean smiled, his eyes closed again.  
"I don’t know, Cas. I just kind of want to sleep and forget this."

The angel nodded again, staying silent afterwards.  
In a couple seconds, Dean rolled off from his body and wrapped an arm around him instead, pressing his face onto Castiel’s neck and breathing in his scent to calm him down a little. He really was tired, so tired his body felt like it was made of lead.  
"I’ll tell you when I feel like it again," he muttered, gladly accepting the older’s invading fingers between his own again, "and I’ll make it worth the wait for you."

Cas huffed, his body shifting closer although they had been very close already - he managed to cross even the inches they hadn’t closed between them yet.  
"I’m sorry," he whispered then, just as Dean had already nearly drifted asleep.  
Consciousness returned gently over him, even if it was a discomfort in itself. Dean smiled and rubbed his nose against the other’s neck.  
"Don’t be, baby angel. Just shut the fuck up and sleep now."


End file.
